[License-review] Approval: OIN License (Open Innovation License)

[Christopher Sean Morrison]

> Date: Sun, 27 Dec 2020 01:46:44 -0500
> From: Andrew Nassief <kamalandrew55 at gmail.com>
> To: Roland Turner <roland at rolandturner.com>
> Cc: License submissions for OSI review
> 
>> The term open innovation been used since the 1960s:
>> 
>> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_innovation
>> 
>> A substantially higher amount of people are familiar with the term open
>> innovation then they are with the open innovation network. Saying that the
>> Open Innovation Network now own the entire OIN acronym is unfair because as
>> I made the point earlier, many acronyms are used can be implied for other
>> things.

This response doesn’t pass a smell teste for me.  The choice of the name “OIN License” creates obvious confusion with a very well known existing mark.  Had the name been “OI License” or “OpIn License” or similar, I would have believed an unfairness claim. Regardless of whether the name was chosen obliviously, there is very clear confusion caused here that I do not think is healthy to endorse.

I also agree with several other commenters that this license is interesting / novel in its preamblish declaration of intent without legal enforcibility, but the wording lacks rigor.  The self-referential definitions seem clumsy. Disregarding the unenforceable parts, I’m also left wondering what (legal) niche this covers from a nonproliferation standpoint.  If the GPL nonlegal preamble were intertwined throughout the license text like this with non-enforcible disclaimers, I would find it an equally confusing construction.

Cheers!
Sean